On 21 May 2012, at 14:45, Diana Chapman wrote: > ...it has been postulated that mass blooming of bulbs after fire could be > due to smoke penetrating the ground, or to nutrients from the ash, but there > were neither, just the removal of dense shrubby vegetation, so maybe it > isn't anything mysterious at all, just the removal of competition... Some twenty years ago, a long neglected area behind Government House here in Victoria BC, the official resident of the Lieutenant Governor, was cleared of invasive species by a band of volunteers, as part of restoring the gardens there. The invasive species included the usual culprits: Scotch broom, ivy, Daphne laureola, etc. The next spring, Erythronium oregonum and camas flowered profusely all down the rocky slope in spite of not having been seen there in living memory. Exactly the same phenomenon Diana has observed. Restoration of Government House gardens: http://www.ltgov.bc.ca/gardens/history.htm View of "The Woodlands" (Government House in background) from south east: http://maps.google.com/?ll=48.416328,- 123.332605&spn=0.01051,0.033088&t=m&z=15&layer=c&cbll=48.416329,- 123.340818&panoid=DGy1fgpSVRO0DKPF1b41Bg&cbp=13,336.28,,0,0.14 -- Rodger Whitlock Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Z. 7-8, cool Mediterranean climate